


structural support

by agletmaybe (agletbaby)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, Gen, old fic newly posted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26016595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agletbaby/pseuds/agletmaybe
Summary: Ushijima is the base on which Shiratorizawa Volleyball Club is constructed: as ace; as their very own national representative; as 189 cm of power and focus and determination. As captain. All Shirabu has in common with him is that title and the accompanying number 1 jersey, and he’d rather not, thank you.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	structural support

It’s your responsibility to carry the team now, Shirabu is told, and he instantly panics, because he’s forgotten how to hold things.

As far as he's concerned, he is Shiratorizawa's setter, and that's it. Setting is about getting the ball somewhere else as efficiently as possible. It is not yours to keep. To set is to provide a fingertip's worth of touch and after that, you get the hell out of the spikers' way.

Ushijima, though, is the base on which Shiratorizawa Volleyball Club is constructed: as ace; as their very own national representative; as 189 cm of power and focus and determination. As captain. All Shirabu has in common with him is that title and the accompanying number 1 jersey, and he’d rather not, thank you.

Something Shirabu likes about himself is that he's not easy to scare. Instead, he’s easy to anger, easier than most people realise and he’ll admit. Because of that, fear is often left behind until afterwards, when he’s calmer and he doesn’t need to be scared anymore.

Shirabu is scared now.

So he focuses on anger, on finding someone to blame, or yell at, someone that can get him out of this before his third year begins and he's stuck.

On finding Ushijima.

(If Shirabu had to describe himself, he wouldn’t. He’d slip away, a technique he’s spent the last two years perfecting. He acts from the edges whilst others hold the centre. It’s not that he can’t handle attention, or even that he won’t, but he knows his position on the court, on the team.

If an object is only being held up by a single support, it must have a firm, central position. If only one side is being propped up, if its support comes from an edge, it’ll tip over and everything will slide off. That’s simple. Rules of physics. Shirabu can’t do this.)

Ushijima keeps regular hours. He follows set routes, moves in small circles. He only has a few weeks left at school, the time studded with exams, so there's no reason for him to change this now. Shirabu looks for him without success for two days. In the meantime, he goes to practice, hardly speaks, and when someone nudges him (Kawanishi usually, blank-faced, but hovering) he steps forward as captains should, and then quickly back.

It’s on the third day that Shirabu finds Ushijima, and it’s not in the lunch hall, or his class, or outside the school gates, or any the other places he’s been lingering silently. It’s on crossed paths in a corridor, and he’s running late for morning registration. He’s not normally late. Ushijima isn't either, though he looks as stoic and solid as always.

Shirabu considers asking if Ushijima will meet with him later; he can use asking for advice as a cover, because that’s what he’s doing, it’s not even an excuse, it’s true, but he’s panicking. He’s panicking, which is why everything comes spilling out.

He says more than he usually would, but it comes down to this: Shirabu is captain. Captains must support. Shirabu cannot. Not support, and not be captain.

And Ushijima listens. Ushijima always listens. People talk at him, and he waits until they finish. He waits for Shirabu to finish.

Then he answers. Or rather, he asks.

“Weren’t you supporting me, though?”

He looks genuinely confused, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like the idea of Shirabu doing anything else is strange.

Shirabu tries to say something in reply, but the bell buries words he hadn’t quite formed anyway.

His classroom is in the opposite direction to Ushijima’s.

He arrives only a few minutes late, but he can’t concentrate. It isn’t that he has forgotten how to hold anything, he admits to himself, as the morning wears down. Rather, he cannot remember how to hold anything else. He has enough strength for Ushijima alone.

(Ushijima, despite his methodical nature, doesn’t care for physics. His spikes are raw and crudely graceful, but most importantly, they go veering away at impossible angles from the outstretched hands of the other team. Shirabu has pulled himself to the side because Ushijima can do that, and he cannot.)

Kawanishi doesn’t want to be vice captain, but not for any of the reasons Shirabu is reluctant. He just doesn’t like putting in more effort than he has to.

“After we lost,” Kawanishi says to Shirabu, catching him before afternoon practice starts, and beginning with no preliminary. “After we lost, I felt small. I could suddenly see where we were, on the scale of things, and it wasn’t very impressive. There’s thousands of losing teams, you know." (Shirabu does now. He didn't have to before.) "But I don’t feel like that anymore. Maybe it’s because the third years have left - there’s more room to stretch out. I don’t know. But I know we’re not small.”

“Thanks?” Shirabu ventures in reply. Kawanishi's not normally this weird, but there’s a glint of omniscience in his eyes.

He shakes his head. “I’m just letting the captain know how I’m feeling. Thanks for listening.”

Shirabu leads a drill that practice. The team looks good. The next practice, he doesn't. They still do. He says that to the spikers he's setting to, even though he doesn't have to.

(It is, he thinks, going to be a case of growth. Biology more than physics. He may be rooted firmly at the edges but, he hopes, he has already branched out, out towards the centre, where players are waiting for his sets.

If Shirabu had to describe himself, he would say he was growing.)

**Author's Note:**

> i found this fic in an old file of abandoned writing from 2015, so although it technically is by me, i claim minimal responsibility. fun fact: the draft title was 'shirabu sucks' in all caps and i have no idea why!  
> also, this pre-dates the shiratorizawa match actually ending (bold of me to predict the outcome, good of me to be correct), so please forgive any inconsistencies. like the lack of dorms. i truly love that they have dorms. i mourn their absence here.


End file.
